Nature Vs Nurture
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Set in the final scene of Season 2, Catherine's thinks on Tommy Lee Royce and what kind of person Ryan will be in a few years.
The only people to claim the rights to Happy Valley are Sally Wainright, great writer, and the BBC. Me? Just a fanfiction author hoping to enjoy his work.

Please leave feedback and any suggestions for future Happy Valley stories.

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Ryan was laughing as Daniel and Clare led them up the hill, but Catherine kept her pace slow so she could think to herself as she slowly walked up the hill after her family, her mind was fixed on Ryan. There were times Catherine asked herself why she was keeping Ryan. Yes, he might have been her grandson, but he was the product of a rape that had torn her family to pieces to the point where her son Daniel and now ex husband Richard wanted nothing to do with the boy. Sometimes she couldn't blame them since Becky had killed herself soon after Ryan were born. Both Daniel and Richard had both mellowed out of their feelings, but it had taken a long time, and more than a little bitterness from both sides. Catherine could still remember their snipings when Ryan were born and from 2 years ago, and sometimes, despite her stance to keep the only piece of Becky nearby, Catherine sometimes asked if Richard and Daniel had a point.

There were times Ryan's behavior drove her up the wall; his inability to read, his temper tantrums which resulted in embarrassing meetings at the school he attended, his lack of common sense, and sometimes the way he screamed obscenities at either her or Clare. Catherine could still remember the way he'd acted after she'd rescued Ann from Tommy Lee Royce, the things he'd yelled at her.

Catherine had been in a bad place - she'd just received terrible injuries after saving Ann, who had stopped to rescue her from the bastard, she'd been put into hospital, missed Kirsten's funeral. That more than anything had made her surly and upset. No wonder she had lashed out at Ryan.

The hard truth was everytime she looked at Ryan she was reminded of Tommy Lee Royce, the bastard who'd raped her Becky, the piece of shit who'd helped kidnap Ann when his employer at the time, Ashley Cowgill, was put up to it by one of Ann's father's employees. Like her Becky, Ann had to live with the fact she had been raped and tortured by the psychopath that was Tommy Lee Royce, but Catherine sometimes envied the young woman's bravery; she had never become pregnant and forced to carry a clone of the bastard, and she had never once contemplated suicide for what had happened to her.

Before the kidnapping, Ann Gallagher had been a normal girl - driving her parents mad, living her life before making her mark on the world though unsure of how she could do it. All that had been torn down because a cowardly little piece of shit had burned at the grudge between himself and Nevison - one sided - and tried to make money out of her kidnapping.

Then she had been kidnapped and forced to grow up in a way no-one should ever have. On top of that she had been raped and tortured by one of the worst psychopaths in Halifax.

Ann had been depressed after the kidnap and it had come out about what had happened to her, but even worse since it were one of Nevison Gallagher's own employees who'd made Cowgill kidnap the poor lass in the first place, but she had cut through it, and now Catherine had to interact with her on a daily basis now she had joined the Police.

But Ryan was living proof that sometimes people could be born with inherent personalities. Catherine's mind flashed back to that horror movie, the Omen where the antichrist was born in a young boy. But Ryan wasn't the antichrist. He was the son of a psychopath who had raped, murdered, and tortured innocent people and left nothing but misery in his wake. Not all of that misery involved a death like Kirsten McAskill. Catherine closed her eyes as she remembered her bright protege; she had been harsh with the girl during her final days, but Kirsten had to grow a spine if she'd wanted to make it, but her death and Catherine not being able to attend the funeral had made her lash out at Ryan when the boy had lashed out at her.

She had just grown so frustrated with everything, and Ryan and his stupidity had given her the perfect outlet for his troubles. Kirsten had stopped the van carrying Ann to the new place she was to be kept, but Tommy Lee Royce had slammed a car into Kirsten's midsection, and then proceeded to run over her, over and over again until the young police officer was very dead. She would never be able to make amends with her, never.

Oh, Catherine didn't blame Ann for what had happened to Kirsten, it wasn't her fault. The girl was just as much an innocent victim as Becky, Kirsten obviously, and a dozen others. Frances Drummond was another victim of Tommy Lee Royce's, but one Catherine genuinely sympathised with. Too many people, stupid people who should've known better, had always been taken in by psychopaths, and believed there was something romantic about marrying someone like that. Catherine herself had never managed to figure out what it was about people who would want to marry someone who had spent their entire lives doing nothing but ruining the lives of others. It was sick. But Frances had done more than just proclaim her all out love for Tommy Lee the bastard Royce; she had taken the identity of her own sister, a teacher, someone who'd been a teacher with impeccable references and used them to gain access to Ryan at school, and proceeded to brainwash him in how he viewed Tommy.

Ryan knew the bastard was his father. It was hard to erase someone's memory after they'd been held prisoner and hostage on a houseboat, doused in petrol, but Ryan didn't speak about him. And Catherine had been content with that for 18 months, though she would've been happier if Ryan had never learnt about Tommy. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he had started talking about the man like he wasn't to blame for anything he'd done.

Frances had genuinely believed that Tommy was a misunderstood man; she had conned her way into Ryan's school, bought an expensive birthday present for the boy, grooming Ryan into thinking about the man as his father.

But she now knew she was a fool - Catherine had seen to that by giving her a list of names of people, some of them a few years older than they were themselves, but there were some decades younger, still in school. Catherine didn't know what Frances was doing with herself now, but she hoped the woman would leave. She didn't particularly want to see her again.

Catherine tried to push all thought of Frances Drummond out of her mind - the woman had enough trouble on her hands as it was - and tried to focus on other things. She wasn't trying to think in this line of thought because everytime she did it depressed her.

But now...Now she was looking at her grandson, scared for him and his future. The boy was too much like Tommy for her peace of mind, but he had it way better than Tommy ever had; Tommy had grown up in the gutter where it was easy for him to fall in that kind of mess, Ryan was living in a nice home, with heating and food, he had an education. Tommy hadn't had half of that support system.

But Tommy had been smart, in that quiet, scary way of his. Catherine was frightened, looking at him now, that in the future, when the boy was in his teens, when he started to resemble Tommy a lot more as an adult than he did now, those traits would become obvious. Catherine didn't know what she would do if Ryan became another Tommy Lee Royce, never mind begin to resemble him more. But she did see the sick bastard each time she looked at Ryan. The image of Tommy as he was now, and Ryan morphing to resemble him more and Becky less and less filled her mind, and made her feel sick. Other things made her feel ill as well; Ryan was a child now, but soon he would become a teenager, and then his interest in girls would begin.

That Catherine dreaded; Ryan was usually uncontrollable for a kid, when he became a teenager he would become worse. But she lived in hope. It was all she could do despite all the evidence.

Would he start thinking about raping them after getting his feel for sex? Rape was all about control, but would Ryan's mind and brain be wired up that way? There were times Catherine wished she had a time machine; she would have loved to have used one to help her stop Tommy from raping Becky, getting the evidence to shove the bastard into prison where he belonged. That way so many innocent people wouldn't have gotten killed or hurt - yeah, Ann may still have been kidnapped, but it wouldn't have meant she would've been raped.

But at that moment, she would've given anything to see the future.

Or would she? No. It wasn't a case of saying ignorance is bliss. Even if she wanted to look into the future, she wouldn't know where to start to stop Ryan if he became another version of his father, wouldn't know how to stop it; how would she know one choice didn't lead to misery in the first place? Another problem would be could she stop it? Catherine had no idea if anyone had seen what Tommy was becoming when he were Ryan's age, and she also didn't have a clue if anyone had tried to stop it before the first rape and death.

Optimism entered her brain at that stage. Ryan showed traits that simply didn't belong in that family; there were moments he was kind and generous, and there were times he truly didn't want to cause trouble at school, he was sometimes roped into them by others, either really stupid bets or dares that did GET him into trouble.

Psychologists and the like had gone on about which were stronger - nature vs nurture, and truthfully none of them were sure which was stronger or better. Catherine herself wasn't sure - she didn't know if Ryan would become Tommy Lee Royce, the next generation. The last thing she wanted was her own grandson becoming a monster like Tommy.

But which was stronger in Ryan - Tommy's genes, or the upbringing he was getting right now? Catherine didn't know, but she did know Ryan had a much better support system than his father ever had as a kid, but she wasn't sure that was enough.

Catherine let out a sigh as she followed the others, Ryan's laughter faint on the air. At least he was having some fun, she reflected before putting everything she'd just thought out of the way, focusing on the other events. John Wadsworth's death still lingered in her mind. Catherine had never trained as a negotiator, and there had been moments she was sure John was going to fall before he actually did fall. Listening to him rant about how Vicky Flemming had spiked his drink and blackmailed him into giving her money once a month had made her pity him rather than see him as a real murderous bastard. John had only had an affair, dozens of coppers had flings with others, but the poor bloke hadn't expected the whole nightmare that had thrown itself on him.

Blackmail, the murder of Vicky Flemming even if he hadn't planned to actually kill her, having to cover the whole thing up, and then discovering his own wife was having it off. No wonder he'd been depressed and scared. Catherine knew Professional Standards were going to be brought in; they were due to arrive anyway for how the case had gone when Darryl had been arrested for those prostitute murders, now they had an even bigger reason to come.

John Wadsworth had been a respected DS; okay, Catherine didn't know him that well, but she knew the basics of his reputation, and if he'd taken the suicide negotiation course and saved nearly 20 people, he had to be good. He had been a part of the investigation into the murders that had been the sign of a serial killer, and he had done a good job of hiding the fact he had basically copied Darryl's methods of killing a woman before destroying all forensic evidence in a fire. It was a neat trick and being a copper meant John had a good knowledge of how the police would investigate the murder.

Professional Standards would ask questions about Wadsworth, such as why no-one had noticed that something was clearly wrong with him. And there was - everyone could see it. Wadsworth had been moody, worried, his face looked pale and his eyes had looked like sunken pits meaning he hadn't been getting much sleep. The SIO for the case would be put under a lot of fire for not seeing something was wrong with his own officer, but truthfully Catherine believed that was unfair despite knowing the SIO was responsible for every single action of his team.

Catherine shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't really her problem, even though she would be asked questions herself, but truthfully she did not care. She was a police officer, had been for years, and she had been asked questions for this type of thing before. John Wadsworth hadn't been the only copper to have killed someone, and he wasn't going to be the last one either. As she walked up the hill, Catherine wondered to herself if she was going to be a copper for much longer. Wadsworths' death had hit her hard since she had been trying to talk him out of jumping. She hated to admit to herself, but a part of her actually couldn't blame him for what he'd done, bizarrely enough.

Vicky Flemming had ruined dozens of lives. She'd seduced men who were happily married (or so they thought), and when they wanted to break things off, she'd throw a wobbler, and then drug them or spike their drinks though the end result was the same. Then she would strip them naked and put stupid costumes on like a vinyl nurse's costume, take photos of them, and use them to blackmail her victims into giving her money. Neil, Clare's new boyfriend, had told her how Vicky worked, and she'd given it straight to John.

Neil had refused to pay her after he'd started making the payments to Vicky to keep her gob shut, and Vicky had retaliated by sending those photos to everyone Neil knew, worked with etc, and it had torn his life to pieces. No wonder the poor bastard had turned to drink to soothe everything.

Catherine wondered how many more bastards Vicky had led along. Maybe they'd never know.

Ryan's voice called out to her. "Granny, aren't you coming?"

Catherine snapped back to reality, and she saw Ryan standing there expectantly, Clare and Daniel standing nearby.

"I'm coming," she called, giving into the urge to suddenly be the irascible woman she was famous for. "Give my old legs time to get there, why don't you?"

Daniel, unable to resist, said, "I thought you were still fast mum?" He was clearly referring to chasing Wadsworth. Catherine huffed at that, but didn't bother to reply to her son. Thoughts of what kind of man Ryan would grow to become were pushed to one side. She would do her best to try to stop Ryan from becoming his father, but she only hoped she succeeded.

For Becky's sake.


End file.
